On his return from America Lampl was appalled to discover that nowadays "a kid like me had little to no chance of making it to Oxbridge or another Russell Group university",[4] noting that his old grammar school was now "all fee-paying"[3] and his old Oxford college "used to have lots of ordinary Welsh kids, but they're not coming through any more."[5]

His first intervention was the creation of the Oxford Summer School, which gives bright 17-year-olds (from families where no one has been to university) the opportunity to spend a week at Oxford living in college, going to seminars and "hanging out with students who are already there." With government assistance the scheme has since been rolled out to ten other top universities.[4]

Lampl founded the Sutton Trust "to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and increase social mobility."[6] The trust funds a variety of research, campaigning and philanthropical projects, including the "Open Access" experiment which funds 70% of places at the academically selective Belvedere School in Liverpool,[7] a scheme which Lampl says the state should eventually expand to 100 or 200 independent schools who would like to provide "needs-blind" admissions.[8] In this model:[9]

“

I agree that there will be some selection. You are not increasing selection as those [independent] schools are already selective, you are just maybe selecting some different kinds of people; other people will be being selected. At the moment well-off people have the opportunity to opt out of the state sector into what are by and large academically the best schools in the country.... I am sorry, but when I was at school you could go to the best academic school in this country for free and that is the way it should be.

”

Former Education Secretary Estelle Morris once suggested that "Given a free hand, he'd re-create the grammar schools. He wants to repeat for others what worked for him."[3] Lampl, however, declines to attribute decreased social mobility to the abolition/large-scale diminution of grammar schools. "It is a combination of schools and universities which has done that."[10]

Lampl was awarded an OBE in 1999 for services to Access to Higher Education,[11] and knighted in the Queen's Birthday list in June 2003.[12]

^ abcdWilby, Peter (27 March 2007). "Big spender". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 February 2008. At Reigate grammar, it was a big occasion if anyone got into Oxbridge. But at Pate's in Cheltenham, which was also a grammar, it was no big deal. It was almost expected of you if you did well. I learned from this that there are certain schools that link into Oxford and Cambridge. I got to Oxford, but I wouldn't have if I had stayed in Reigate.